People Are Fed Up With “Heartwarming, Feel Good” News Stories That Are Just Dystopian Nightmares
There is genuinely nothing heartwarming about poverty and perseverance porn.
With the pandemic throwing a lot of people out of jobs that provided stable income, and often times, access to healthcare for Americans, there’s been a significant rise in “feel good” stories of people doing anything they can to make it through these tough times.
But the issue is these stories aren’t heartwarming at all. They’re dystopian, and are really just systemic failures, social injustices and capitalism gone mad framed as heartwarming tales to distract the public from the real issues at hand.
Every heartwarming human interest story in america is like "he raised $20,000 to keep 200 orphans from being crushed in the orphan-crushing machine" and then never asks why an orphan-crushing machine exists or why you'd need to pay to prevent it from being used.
— Anosognosiogenesis (@pookleblinky) September 25, 2020
For example, last week ABC7 News tried to frame a story about a child throwing away her college savings to avoid homelessness as a “feel good” human interest story.
“Texas teen Alondra Carmona is giving up her entire college savings to help pay for her mom’s rent and prevent her being evicted,” the story push read, paired with a smiling image of the child.
This is not normal, nor heartwarming, nor a sweet story. It’s not inspiring. It’s a sad, dystopian nightmare that highlights the problems in the way society operates, where children have to give up their futures to help those that the government refuses to.
Similarly, just last month NBC shared a story where “a high school principal picks up overnight job at Walmart” to help students in need with “every paycheque going towards helping his students”.
But instead of investigating why a hard-working American had to pick up a second job to help students instead of the government assisting, the outlet just framed the story as a tale of a man who has “been giving back to others since he was a child”.
Not heartwarming. This is a horror story. https://t.co/4gD4zbYVX1
— Al B Where the Money Reside (@ALBDamn) February 9, 2021
We have failed our educators and our students. https://t.co/etsmt8YfsB
— Meena Harris (@meenaharris) January 31, 2021
Sadly, these stories haven’t just cropped up because of the pandemic. These depressing tales of “positive news” stories have been around for years.
Last year, media romanticised the bleak story of co-workers “heartwarmingly” “donating their sick days” to a nurse who ran out of personal leave as she battled leukemia. Then there was the 9-year-old who was praised for paying off the school lunch debts of his entire class after “saving his allowance”, when “school lunch debt” for children is definitely something that shouldn’t even exist.
How about the 60-year-old woman who was given a car by her community because her walking 12 miles to work six days a week was a “symbol of hard work and determination” instead of a sign of how poorly she must be paid to work so much and still not be able to afford life’s bare necessities?
Of course, there was also the article about the 89-year-old pizza delivery man who was gifted with a “surprise tip of $12,000”, that didn’t even question why someone so old still needed to work.
Basically, these “positive news stories” suck because people shouldn’t need to struggle or go without to be able to live — and we shouldn’t be glamourising these horrific stories of unnecessary sacrifice at the hands of capitalism as perseverance and poverty porn.
But now people are fed up, and have created the “Heartwarming” meme to call out the sheer ridiculousness of these “feel good stories” by taking the tales to the extreme.
A heartwarming story coming out of Ohio today as an eleven year old boy successfully auctions off his organs to pay for his mother's bathroom breaks at the Amazon warehouse
— Dan Sheehan (@ItsDanSheehan) February 9, 2021
HEARTWARMING: Local 9-year-old starts driving for Uber to pay for his mom's cancer treatment
— jordan (@JordanUhl) February 9, 2021
HEARTWARMING:
When this 92 year old man who pays for his insulin by working as a snake frustrater at the snake pit was bitten by one of the snakes, this community came together to give him one dose of the antidote and get him back in the snake pit.— James Colley (@JamColley) September 25, 2020
heartwarming: local 3rd grader puts in extra shifts at the coal mine to help his mother buy the medicine she needs to survive. details at 11
— hype (@TheHyyyype) January 30, 2021
Taking the meme to the next level, people have even begun to point out the issues in these “wholesome” stories by spinning pop culture’s most questionable storylines into ~inspiring tales~ worthy of their own human interest stories.
Demonstrating just how easy it is to twist horrific tales into feel good moments, Breaking Bad, The Hunger Games and even Parasite were the perfect examples of why these “positive” and “heartwarming” stories sold to us by the media just suck so incredibly much.
HEARTWARMING: Chemistry teacher turns to meth dealing to pay for cripplingly expensive chemotherapy. pic.twitter.com/oXkcnuFOdq
— Chris Ray Gun 🇵🇷 (@ChrisRGun) February 10, 2021
HEARTWARMING: Children use neighbor's WiFi to help family make ends meet pic.twitter.com/r10ej7gG3U
— Ken Klippenstein (@kenklippenstein) February 10, 2021
HEARTWARMING: Engineer tests people’s will to live after being diagnosed with a frontal lobe tumor. pic.twitter.com/Po83jsbysX
— diana (@nervegashaus) February 10, 2021
HEARTWARMING: Girl goes without EpiPen to save up for college pic.twitter.com/6KmpmctuLS
— Ken Klippenstein (@kenklippenstein) February 10, 2021
HEARTWARMING: Couple wins gameshow and lifts families out of poverty! pic.twitter.com/lZJHULmIkw
— 🚩Suspected of Communist Activity🚩🍊 (@S_LoreneCarol) February 11, 2021
How uplifting and beautiful :’).